Strengthening your Pelvic floor; How-To & Why it’s important

At the age of 23 you’d think that I’d be nowhere near the age of talking to you about Tena products on my blog, but if there’s one perk of pregnancy (you know besides the adorable mini human you get at the end) then it’s got to be the light bladder leaks you can get. I was always told to exercise my pelvic floor whilst I was pregnant and even after I gave birth there was so much emphasis on “are you exercising your pelvic floor?”. Of course my answer was always yes and I’d do a few quick reps whilst sat in the chair and then instantly forget to do them again until the next appointment. I mean, I’m 23, I don’t need to worry about bladder incontinence. 

Boy was I wrong! It’s been almost 5 months now since I gave birth to Madison and with the 9 (really long) months prior to the best day of my life she’d been weighing down on my pelvic floor for quite some time. Now I know that talking about little leaks like this isn’t the usual content of my blog but you know what? I’m a mum now and I’m so sick of topics that actually affect most of us being taboo. So I’ve decided to break that taboo and there will be a lot more content on my blog from now on about the real life of being a Mum (and being a female in general!).

Thinking that these little leaks would just stop after everything went back to normal down there I didn’t think much of them; I started using thin sanitary pads but they weren’t doing that great at protecting me from anything. I didn’t even think about the fact that they’re designed for periods and so wouldn’t really do that well with a bit of wee – I know, silly right? I’d do a couple of my pelvic floor exercises every time I noticed a bit of a leak and then forget about them again 10 seconds later.  Since having learnt about Lights by Tena this past weekend though it’s all hit me a little harder and I’m determined to keep myself in check and a little tighter to stop those Oooops Moments from happening any more. I don’t want to be 25 and peeing myself for gods sake!

Did you know that 62% of women in the UK experience Light Bladder weakness? Neither did I. Considering how taboo light bladder weakness is, you’d think it’d be a hell of a lot less than that. There’s such a stigma around it as well with us all thinking that only older ladies get little leaks but believe me, as a lady who’s not long ago given birth, younger people get them too!

Obviously since I’m only 23 I don’t want to be having these Oooops moments for the rest of my life and so I’m putting my Pelvic Floor exercises into my daily routine! The Lights by Tena My PFF app is the perfect companion for any lady wanting to keep their muscles strong and their bladder competent. I’m saying this for every woman really, whether you currently have any issues or not: your pelvic floor exercises are important. I wish I’d done mine during my pregnancy and my mum wishes she’d done hers when she was my age (sorry for the TMI mum). The My PFF app has detailed instructions on how to work your pelvic floor, a daily reminder to ensure you remember your exercises and also a ‘learn’ tab which tells you all about the importance of it all. You can even request free samples of the Lights by Tena products! As your pelvic floor isn’t something you’d usually think of exercising like you would your glutes, arms or legs, the daily reminders have really been helping me this past week to get into the habit of doing my little squeezes throughout the day. It’s not even something anyone knows your doing – hell, you could even do one right now whilst reading this post and no one would know! You don’t want to get older and suffer with incontinence do you?

Lights by Tena provide women with the perfect solution to embarrassment free Oooops moments with the most absorbent and comfortable towels that I’ve ever tried (and they dry up really quickly too). They’ve designed their towels to effectively soak up urine (not blood) and keep you feeling and smelling fresh all day long with 5x the absorbency and 5x the dryness of any other liner. You can purchase Lights by Tena pretty much anywhere that sells feminine hygiene products from my experience and you can download the My PFF app for free on the Apple / Android stores.

Have you ever thought about exercising your pelvic floor before?